Grandparents to pass down 'wall of wealth' to millennials, research suggests

New research published by insurers Royal London has suggested that over £400 billion in housing wealth is set to be passed down from older generations to benefit millennials in the coming years.

The data, which was collected by YouGov for Royal London, was obtained by surveying over 5,000 individuals from three generations: an older generation of 65 to 85-year-old homeowners, a 'baby boomer' generation of 45 to 64-year-olds and a millennial generation of 25 to 44-year-olds.

The research revealed that, although most of the wall of housing wealth is to be passed initially to baby boomers, the majority of this group expect to give some or all of the inherited wealth to millennials.

However, the research also suggested that only a small number of young people stand to benefit: only around four million of 17 million young people have grandparents with housing wealth.

Steve Webb, Director of Policy at Royal London, commented: 'Grandparents still attach great importance to passing on their wealth rather than consuming it.

'Those millennials lucky enough to have home-owning parents and grandparents may be set to benefit from significant inheritance which will help them onto the housing ladder. But the majority of millennials are not in that position.

'Schemes such as the Lifetime ISA which provide a government contribution of £1,000 per year for those who have £4,000 per year to save will tend to favour precisely those groups who already have access to wealth.'